Patch 11.24 notes
We cordially invite you to an exquisite, green tie Debonair affair to celebrate the end of the year!
We're keeping it classy this week with sophisticated champion, item, rune, and dragon updates to keep preseason running splendidly. Ultimate Spellbook is also getting a spiffy update, and ARAM players worry not—we have some swanky news for you, too. So get your flashiest outfits ready to greet the new year in glitz and glam! It'll be just grand.
Debonair dress code too strict for ya? Head over to the TFT patch notes where the Little Legends won't Debo-care what you wear!
Bisous,
Mid-Patch Updates
12/15/2021 Mid-Patch Balances
We're taking care of a few urgent mid-patch balances before we put things on pause for the holidays.
Dr. Mundo
Dr. Mundo is wreaking too much medical havoc in top lane.
Base Stats
Q - Infected Cleaver
Gwen
Gwen is weak, especially with Lethal Tempo. (Hint: Pick Conqueror instead!) We're helping her reach her late game damage by buffing her early durability.
Base Stats
Kai'Sa
Kai'Sa is normally kept on the weaker side for most players due to Pro priority, but has recently fallen even further due to shifting meta and pre-season.
Passive - Second Skin
Q - Icathian Rain
W - Void Seeker
Kassadin
Kassadin is too strong in lane, especially against melee champions.
Passive - Void Stone
W - Nether Blade
Lux
Lux is a little too strong in mid lane and continues to be popular as a support, so we're reducing her CC’s uptime and burst combo just a bit.
Q - Light Binding
Olaf
We're reverting a previous Olaf nerf so that he feels empowered to fight it out at low health.
Passive - Berserker Rage
Pyke
Pyke is a bit weak right now, so we're buffing up his lane versatility through his regen and hooks.
Passive - Gift of the Drowned Ones
Q - Bone Skewer
Talon
Talon jungle has been a nightmare in high elo, so we're pulling back on his power there.
W - Rake
Varus
We're buffing Varus with a focus on his non-lethality builds and also taking the opportunity to bump his AP off-build.
Passive - Living Vengeance
W - Blighted Quiver
Vayne
Vayne is too strong, even if we consider her items being overtuned right now.
R - Final Hour
Glacial Augment
The last buff to Glacial wasn't as big as we hoped for enchanters.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug where killing a target with Talon's ranged Q - Noxian Diplomacy would not grant its cooldown refund
- Fixed a bug where repeatedly casting Talon's melee Q - Noxian Diplomacy would sometimes cancel his next auto-attack
- Fixed a bug where, if Skarner immediately attacked a champion marked by his E - Fracture, it would not consume its Crystal Venom mark
12/10/2021 Ultimate Spellbook & ARAM Balances
Ult-ernate Summoner Spell Changes
Ultimate Spellbook Champion Buffs
Ultimate Spellbook Champion Nerfs
ARAM Balances
Patch Highlights
Champions
Caitlyn
Headshot resets partially restored.
Several attack "resets" on Caitlyn's Headshots were removed during her ASU. These resets were notoriously difficult to maneuver and were not part of Caitlyn's original design. (Technically, her Headshots executed as abilities rather than empowered basic attacks, which is what allowed the bugged reset functionality.) It wasn't sustainable—or healthy, even—to keep her passive as-is, so we're instead refactoring her Headshot resets in a way that looks smoother and is easier to pull off.
Passive - Headshot
Camille
W damage decreased. E cooldown increased late.
Camille is a bit too mobile for the damage she dishes out, so we're limiting access to herODM geardashes. We're also nerfing her trading tool so that she doesn't get such a free advantage in lane.
W - Tactical Sweep
E - Hookshot
Ivern
Krug experience and gold rewards increased.
Ivern loves all of his forest friends equally, but when push comes to shove, freeing the Krugs isn't really worth the effort. Krugs give significantly less gold and experience than the other small jungle camps, even though it takes Ivern the same amount of time, mana, and health to free them. (This oughta teach 'em how to say thanks!)
Passive - Friend of the Forest
Kayle
Passive wave distance now scales with bonus attack range.
After reaching level 11, if Kayle has enough stacks, her basic attacks launch waves of fire that travel an extra distance and damage enemies they pass through. The distance these waves travel used to be a flat number. Now, it will scale with her bonus attack range, which can be extended by other effects such as her passive at level 16 or Lethal Tempo.
Passive - Divine Ascent
Kled
Kled & Skaarl's health calculations changed. E cooldown reduced; AD ratio increased.
Tank Kled has been optimal for a while because of the massive bonus HP he gets from Skaarl. We're adjusting how his health is calculated to make his playstyle healthier and more interesting. However, this will nerf some of his bruiser builds, so we're buffing his damage and cooldowns to compensate. We'll keep an eye on the cantankerous duo after this change to monitor AD Kled's viability.
Base Stats
Passive - Skaarl, the Cowardly Lizard
E - Jousting
Twitch
R bolt distance now scales with bonus attack range.
When Twitch uses his ult, his basic attacks become bolts that travel slightly farther than his attack range and deal damage to enemies in a straight path (similar to Kayle's passive). This distance also used to be a flat number and will now scale with his bonus attack range.
R - Spray and Pray
Samira
R no longer costs mana.
Few things feel worse than running out of mana for Samira's ult after getting all her passive stacks ready. This mana cost was originally designed to control her early waveclear, but since that hasn't really been a problem, it became the perfect opportunity to bring her back—in style.
R - Inferno Trigger
Urgot
Passive and W attacks now scale with bonus attack range.
Just in case you wanted to run Lethal Tempo on Urgot. It's probably still not a good idea, but... whatever floats yourboatspidery-leg-cyborg... vehicle... thingy.
Passive - Echoing Flames
W - Purge
Items
Archangel's Staff
Archangel's Staff isn't performing all that well, so we're lowering its cost to help.
Axiom Arc
Axiom Arc is supposed to provide ability-based assassins an exciting teamfight output. However, it's been doing that a little too consistently.
Cosmic Drive
Cosmic Drive is significantly overperforming on most champions.
Crown of the Shattered Queen
Crown of the Shattered Queen is another new mage item that has been doing too well on most champions, especially considering it's supposed to be a more defensive Mythic option.
Caesura (Ornn Item)
Evenshroud
Evenshroud has all but eclipsed its sunnier counterpart (a.k.a. Locket), so we're bringing it in line with the other support Mythics. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Equinox.)
Frostfire Gauntlet
Frostfire Gauntlet is a punch above the other tank Mythics, offering a little bit of everything at a relatively low cost. We're bringing down its damage, which was a bit too high compared to Sunfire, including the health scaling. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Rimeforged Grasp.)
Runes
Conqueror
The nerf to Conqueror's duration in 11.21 was a little too restrictive. We're partially reverting the nerf and boosting its damage to make it comparable to other keystones like Grasp of the Undying, Fleet Footwork, and Lethal Tempo.
Glacial Augment
Glacial Augment is the best keystone for many tanks by a large margin right now. We're nerfing it in a way that shouldn't affect its other users.
Lethal Tempo
Lethal Tempo is a little too strong for some melee champions. It's also failing to fulfill its attack speed fantasy for ranged users, so we're shifting some of the power from its bonus attack range for them.
Predator
Now that the dust from its 11.18 buff has settled, it's become clear that this powerful version of Predator is undercutting counterplay. We're reverting that change to address this, especially since Ingenious Hunter's 11.21 buffs helped Predator's viability considerably.
Dragons
The temporarily doubled selection rates of Chemtech Rift and Hextech Rift terrains during patch 11.23 have been removed. All dragon terrains have returned to their normal selection rates.
Chemtech Drake
The standard Chemtech Drake Buff is notably weak while, conversely, the Chemtech Dragon Soul is too strong. We're also adding a visual helper so you can identify chemtech zombies better.
Hextech Drake
On the contrary, while Hextech Dragon Soul seems to be in a reasonable place, the standard Hextech Drake Buff could use a boost.
Ultimate Spellbook Updates
New Ult-ernate Summoner Spells
Cassiopeia
Diana
Ekko
Fizz
Nasus
Poppy
Ryze
Singed
Removed Ult-ernate Summoner Spells
Janna
Rell
System Changes
ARAM Balances
Melee & Assassin Buffs
Melee champions—especially assassins—have been struggling in ARAM for a while now. We're adding two buffs independent of the champion-specific adjustments to balance accordingly. The first should allow melee champions to push waves more easily.
Assassins are a bit harder to balance as fiddling with their numbers in this mode risks diminishing counterplay. Increasing their damage dealt would let them delete enemies before any chance to react, whereas decreasing their damage taken removes opportunities for counter-burst. So instead, we're trying something a little different: AP assassins will now do bonus damage to structures from the start, much sooner than other champions. This later gets replaced by ARAM's a generic time-based buff which, after 18 minutes, grants all champions 0-25% (based on minutes) bonus damage to structures.
Champions are adaptively determined as "AP-scaling" if they have more bonus AP than bonus AD throughout the game. The breakeven point at which the generic ARAM buff's bonus damage to structures exceeds 20% is approximately 27:36.
Champion Buffs
Champion Nerfs
Bugfixes & QoL Changes
- newHealth Bar VFX: New VFX have been added to player health bars to indicate when shields, Guardian Angel, and other health-related effects activate.
- newHappy Ahri-versary! Dynasty Ahri's splash art has a new look to celebrate her 10th Ahri-versary! Special Ahri-versary chromas have also been added for each of her skins.
- updatedVarus VFX Update: Each of Varus's skins have received visual effect updates to varying degrees
- updatedSFX Updates: Base Caitlyn, Base Orianna, Gatekeeper Galio, and several Kled skins have received audio updates to play their voice lines and interactions more consistently and accurately
- Fixed a bug where Kindred could not mark the Chemtech or Hextech Drakes with Passive - Mark of the Kindred
- Fixed a bug where champions would briefly flicker at their destination Hexgate before they arrive
- Yorick's Mist Walkers, Elise's Spiderlings, and Bard's Meeps will now arrive at destination Hexgates with their champions, not before them
- Fiddlesticks' Effigies from all over the map will, sadly, no longer warp through Hexgates with him :(
- Death recaps have been fixed to correctly report damage dealt by Dragon Soul buffs
- Fixed a bug where the detection radius indicator around your stealthed champion would sometimes disappear
- Fixed a bug where wards placed over terrain near towers could sometimes reveal stealthed champions
- Fixed a bug where control wards would sometimes reveal stealthed champions inside chemtech zones
- Stealthed champions will shimmer properly upon taking damage inside chemtech zones
- Fixed a bug where champions would not get Sudden Impact's bonus magic penetration and lethality upon exiting camouflage
- Control wards will no longer erroneously play "reveal" VFX around invisible enemy champions and, conversely, invisible champions will no longer erroneously play "revealed" VFX around enemy control wards
- Qiyana's green Q - Elemental Wrath and LeBlanc's Passive - Mirror Image invisibility effects in chemtech zones have been restored
- Abilities that grant True Sight of enemies, such as Nidalee's Passive - Prowl or Lee Sin's Q - Sonic Wave, will properly reveal invisible units again
- Fixed a bug where, if Talon uses R - Shadow Assault and targets an enemy with his ranged Q - Noxian Diplomacy while he is rooted, his ultimate's blades would incorrectly converge on his target rather than his current location
- Fixed a visual bug where Talon's abilities would falsely appear to apply Passive - Blade's End stacks on targets with active spell shields
- Talon's melee Q - Noxian Diplomacy cooldown will no longer fully restart if his target becomes invalid during its cast (now matches Kha'Zix's Q - Void Spike behavior)
- Talon's ranged Q - Noxian Diplomacy cooldown has been fixed to restart upon initiating its dash, not upon completing it
- Talon's E - Assassin's Path will no longer get interrupted by hard CC when he has an active spell shield
- Fixed a bug where Sheen's Spellblade passive would interfere with Skarner's E - Fracture cooldown reduction
- Fixed a bug where Taliyah would not be able to use her Passive - Rock Surfing for the rest of the game if someone broke her Banshee's Veil spell shield while she was Rock Surfing
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused issues when you cast an ability at the same location as your champion and cursor
- Fixed a bug where, if Mordekaiser used his R - Realm of Death while Vi was pursuing him with her R - Cease and Desist, she would be stuck in her ultimate's pursuit state until he returned from his Death Realm
- Fixed several bugs with Malzahar's Passive - Void Shift shield that would sometimes consume or refresh it incorrectly
- Fixed a bug where Aphelios would sometimes get stuck in an A-pose if slain shortly after initiating a basic attack
- Fixed a bug where owning a Frozen Heart would incorrectly count as being in-combat, nullifying effects such as Boots of Mobility's passive
- Fixed a bug where Akshan sometimes could not recast W - Going Rogue if he was low on mana, even though the second cast has no mana cost
- Fixed a bug where Rengar could sometimes cast W - Battle Roar during Zhonya's Hourglass' Stasis
- Fixed several bugs that could occur while possessing Ivern or Akshan with Viego's Passive - Sovereign's Domination
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: